


Sun of the Shadows

by uumuu



Series: Fëanorians beyond the First Age (AUs) [4]
Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-23
Updated: 2017-03-23
Packaged: 2018-10-09 14:52:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10414641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/uumuu/pseuds/uumuu
Summary: Maedhros and Maglor regain the Silmarils, and much more.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Fill for the 'Sun and Stars' prompt in my GenPrompt Bingo card.

Celebrimbor, bedraggled and almost as weather-worn as the bare rock of the cave he guarded, stirred in disbelief from his perch on a large boulder, nearly fell over, when he made out his uncles' silhouettes in the red-tinted distance. 

Maedhros and Maglor scuffed up the steep hillside, holding two Silmarils, each in their left hand, like new suns ready to rise at the very end of the world.

Uncles and nephew faced each other without uttering a word, reluctant to even come too close. The harsh words Celebrimbor had hurled at Maedhros and Maglor before they left for the camp of the Valar still rang between them, but the very sight of the Silmarils kindled a new fire in Celebrimbor's eyes. His gaze caressed them, clung to them and the hope they bestowed. The gems were ill-gained, steeped in too much blood to ever come clean of it, and so would be his joy, yet no qualms of guilt and no burden of sin would undo the burning need for his father, the need to have him back and fill the distance that had separated them with whatever was at hand.

Maedhros and Maglor waited for him to draw aside, then turned to their task without any further delay, and no hesitation. Faltering daylight glanced inside the mouth of the cave, but as they progressed down the natural corridor the Silmarils took over, giving back shards of sunlight like embers floating inside the widening tunnel. Tiny fissures in the roof kept it well-aerated, but not a speck of dirt, not a stray leaf littered the floor or the caskets, lined one next to the other at the very back of the cave. 

Three pointed ovals made of polished wood cradled Curufin Celegorm and Caranthir, frozen in breathless sleep. The twins, who had fashioned their brother's caskets out of the trees of Ossiriand, lay curled up against each other in a single, coarse rectangular box to the right. At the far left, a slender casket held all that was left of their father: an oblong mound of ashes.

Maglor let his bag slip from his shoulder, dropped his paired swords and the dagger buckled to his belt on top of it, and covered everything with his cape. Unburdened, he retrieved the Silmaril and sat down cross-legged in the middle of the cave, laying the gem down on the ground at his left, the upper tip of it pointed towards the caskets. 

Maedhros bent over and surrendered his own, setting it down at Maglor's right with a light groan. Their father's will and Varda's hallowing had battled inside the gems, leading to abrupt spikes of ice-burning pain followed by spells of gentle soothing warmth. Maedhros looked at his hand, slightly reddened and still faintly pulsating – though the throbbing could just have been the echo of his heartbeat for what he was about to witness as much as a consequence of Varda's hallowing. He had endured much worse at any rate, and Maglor was not to one to be daunted by physical pain. 

The brothers nodded to each other, and Maglor dropped his head, taking deep breaths as he got ready to sing a song, a song of power, a song of rebirth, in preparation for which he had been saving his voice ever since he had sung a dirge on the ruins of Doriath. 

Maedhros was drawn towards the caskets, as if pulled by the very tether which bound his soul to the souls of his father and brothers. He surveyed each stiff and cold body, each one pristine as if death had been merely a ritual to crystallise it in its best appearance, then took off his gloves and, holding them in his left hand, approached Curufin's body. He crouched down next to him and brushed the fingers of his artificial hand on his brother's face. 

The hand was a wonder, a contraption devised by Celebrimbor using the surviving scraps of his father's research, which Maedhros could control as a real limb. He wasn't used to it yet, and didn't trust to use it to brandish a sword, but it allowed him the intimacy of touch, poured the gelid smoothness of his brother's cheek up his arm. He twisted around to glance towards the mouth of the cave. Celebrimbor peeked in at the same moment, his eyes brimming with hope and desire against a backdrop of smouldering sunlight. 

Maedhros smiled at him.

The Silmarils would not fail them: preserving the light of the Trees and dispensing that light's blessing were the least significant of the Silmarils' powers.

The link that existed between their souls would do the rest. Their mother had borne their bodies, but their father had nourished their souls with his: the most generous gift any living being could make. They had tied that bond tighter over the centuries, in body as much as in spirit, and soldered it with the Oath. The Oath had bound them all to one purpose and one fate, and if regaining the Silmarils had started as a quest for revenge, after their father's death it had become an inexorable necessity.

Maedhros's eyes narrowed, while he brushed his thumb over Curufin's blue smooth lips, recalling where that frantic need to regain the Silmarils had led him, the agony and the despair. And yet as long as he had been held inside Angband, Morgoth had hurt, hurt so badly that delivering Maedhros to Thangorodrim had been the only way for him not succumb under the burden of the Silmarils. Even that hadn't availed him much, in the end. 

Maglor cleared his throat and his song spilled, like water bubbling up a newly opened fissure in the ground, forcefully growing into a mighty spray. Maedhros locked the memories away, in the corner of his mind he had confined it to so that it could not hurt him. He focused on Curufin's face again, then cast a glance in his father's casket, yearning to see the same face take shape anew from the ashes. 

Maglor's voice rose steadily. The Silmarils picked up the power in it, the _familiarity_ of it, the timbre so intimately similar to their creator's call, until their light spread in tendrils like paths for their father and brothers' souls to burrow themselves in their bodies again. 

Caranthir was the first to wake, sitting upright with an abrupt jerk of his stiff body. Just as swiftly he twisted, glaring behind him as if he might have pierced the eyes of the cowards who shot him in the back in Doriath. Then he faced forward again, his head swayed to and fro and his eyes settled on the carvings with which Celebrimbor had whiled away his dreary, solitary watch.

The twins opened their eyes to smile at their mirrored face and slowly, languidly stretched, roused as it were from a brief nap. 

Curufin's eyes met Maedhros's the moment they opened anew, wayward shards of grey coming to life in the light of the Silmarils. Curufin sucked in a wheezing breath, his nostrils flaring and his mouth falling open, and spat it out in a long whimper, followed by tears. 

Trembling with crushing joy, Maedhros reached inside the casket and gathered his little brother into his arms. The return of life to Curufin's body tugged and plucked at the tether between their souls: memories thoughts and feelings flowing freely between them. Maedhros held Curufin tight, unconsciously rocking them both in those moments during which they could have been a single entity.

Over the top of Curufin's head he watched as Celegorm gripped the edges of the casket, sat up and shook the stiffness of death off himself as a wolf shakes his coat free of water. 

After a time, measured footsteps heralded a call of “Father?”, barely audible under Maglor's song. 

Curufin pulled back from Maedhros's embrace, craned his neck to direct his glossy gaze past Maedhros's shoulder, stared.

There were no apologies, no recriminations or accusations, not then. Celebrimbor gathered his father in his arms, lifted him out of the casket and sat with him on the ground, cradling him against his chest. 

Maedhros patted the top of his nephew's head, a small reconciliation, and stood back. He had been surprised, when Celebrimbor arrived on Amon Ereb after Doriath, claiming that he needed to see them and not find his father with them, claiming that if he didn't do that he would never be able to accept his father's death and would keep hankering to see him. And hanker Celebrimbor did, twice as savagely, after Maedhros led him to this isolated cave in the Blue Mountains and showed him his father's corpse. 

And now, they were almost all together again. 

The twins were already perched on one side of their coffin, kissing. Caranthir cautiously rose to his feet, stepped out and blindly reached for Celegorm's arms when his knees buckled. 

The ashes in their father's casket had started to flicker and float, and the light of the Silmarils wrapped around them as they rearranged themselves into the shape of an elf. Maedhros watched them, transfixed, and didn't immediately notice when Maglor's song abruptly stopped. He spun around just in time to see Maglor mouth 'I'm sorry' and slump forward, utterly drained. 

“I will get you something to eat,” Celebrimbor said, before Maedhros had a chance to react. He let go of his father, and didn't look at his uncles as he hurried out to his stash of provisions. 

Caranthir and Celegorm sat down on either side of Maglor, held his hands and snuggled close. Supported between his brothers, between those whose life he had restored, Maglor surveyed the one incomplete fruit of his song: an elf-shaped cocoon of cinders, flickering restlessly, like autumn leaves set ablaze by the setting sun. 

Maedhros met his eyes with gratitude and adoration when Maglor turned to him, and held them until Maglor nodded towards the Silmarils. Maedhros understood, picked them up and put them in the casket, mindful not to touch the ashes.

“Where is the third?” Amras asked, coming to stand next to him. 

Maedhros stooped to kiss him and then Amrod, who clung to his other side. “The Valar put it in the sky, a star which shines brighter than any Varda ever made.”

“Do you think we need that too, for father?” Curufin asked, holding onto brim of Fëanor's casket. 

Maedhros wished, once again, that he could just mould the ashes into his likeness with his bare hands.

Maglor shook his head. “We just need time,” he said, his voice a raspy hiss, scraping on his brother's consciousness. 

“When...when did Tyelperinquar come back?” 

“When he found out there was a chance of you coming back to life, though he took great pains to make it absolutely clear that he disapproves of kinslaying,” Maedhros replied, a hint of mirth creeping into his tone.

Amras shrugged. “It's not like we had much of a choice.”

“But we did, remember?” Caranthir put in, mordant, “we were supposed to simply give them up.”

“And everybody else had plenty of valid reasons to keep them at all costs, yes.” 

Celebrimbor's footsteps echoed from the mouth of the cave, and they fell silent. All light was gone outside, mist having risen to shroud the noiseless night. Celebrimbor set his bags of wild berries and dried meat down in front of Maglor, and took his place next to his father, the Silmarils bathing his face in untarnished radiance.


End file.
